Last winter, the National Football League began lining up suitors to distribute what has become one of the hottest commodities in sports: live data from games.
Once limited to basic statistics, that data now includes everything from the bend in a soccer ball’s flight to a running back’s acceleration, measured by computer chips in his shoulder pads. Streaming from fields, courts and rinks, it drives not only game apps on fans’ mobile phones and computers, but also fantasy sites and professional scouting reports.
The N.F.L.’s courtship ended in April when the league dumped its longtime partner and signed a lucrative new deal with a company called Sportradar, which is based in Switzerland and little known in the United States.